Legal expert systems are computer applications that can mimic the consultation process of a legal expert to provide advice specific to a given scenario. The core of these systems is the experts’ knowledge captured in a sophisticated and often complex logic or rule base. Such complex systems rely on both knowledge engineers or system programmers and domain experts to maintain and update in response to changes in law or circumstances. This paper describes a pragmatic approach using process modelling techniques that (...) enables a complex legal expert system to be maintained and updated dynamically by a domain expert such as a legal practitioner with little computing knowledge. The approach is illustrated using a case study on the design of an online expert system that allows a user to navigate through complex legal options in the domain of International Family Law. (shrink)

The Newman problem is a fundamental problem that threatens to undermine structural assumptions and structural theories throughout philosophy and science. Here, we consider the problem in the context of consciousness science. We introduce and discuss the problem, and explain why it is detrimental not only to structuralist assumptions, but also to theories of consciousness, if left unconsidered. However, we show that if phenomenal spaces, and mathematical structures of conscious experience more generally, are understood in the right way, the Newman problem (...) does not arise. The upshot of our paper is that consciousness science needs to be careful in which definition of structure to consider, but if it is, the Newman problem disappears. (shrink)

Several promising approaches have been developed to represent conscious experience in terms of mathematical spaces and structures. What is missing, however, is an explicit definition of what a ‘mathematical structure of conscious experience’ is. Here, we propose such a definition. This definition provides a link between the abstract formal entities of mathematics and the concreta of conscious experience; it complements recent approaches that study quality spaces, qualia spaces, or phenomenal spaces; and it provides a general method to identify and investigate (...) structures of conscious experience. We hope that ultimately this work provides a basis for developing a common formal language to study consciousness. (shrink)

This paper argues that epistemic smothering is not a form of epistemic paternalism. In this sense, it refutes the claim recently made by Valerie Chock and Jonathan Matheson, who defend epistemic smothering as epistemically permissible form of epistemic paternalism. After an outline of what is meant by epistemic paternalism and epistemic smothering, based on the work by Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij and Kristie Dotson on these topics, the paper argues against the identification of epistemic smothering as a form of epistemic paternalism. In (...) the conclusion, it also calls for a reconsideration of how exactly to conceive of epistemic paternalism. (shrink)

Reprint of the ed. published by Dietrich which was issued as Bd. 9, Heft 2 of Studien zur Geschichte der Theologie und der Kirche.

Si l’on connaît aujourd’hui le dialogue fructueux que Paul Ricœur a noué avec les penseurs structuralistes, on ignore largement son positionnement face à la mouvance poststructuraliste. Faut-il opposer la philosophie de Ricœur au poststructuralisme à la française ou au contraire doit-on montrer qu’elle en est une variante singulière? C’est la seconde option qui est ici défendue. Certes, le poststructuralisme ne doit pas être considéré comme une école de pensée mais comme une reconstruction qui relève de l’histoire de la philosophie. Dans (...) la mesure où les horizons de dépassement du structuralisme ont été posés de manière chaque fois particulière, il est préférable de parler de poststructuralismes au pluriel. C’est la raison pour laquelle J. Michel propose des confrontations dyadiques entre Ricœur et certains de ses contemporains que l’on regroupe habituellement dans cette mouvance. (shrink)

This book critically examines what role, if any, should the notion of perfection play in the debate regarding the ethics of human enhancement. It defends that the concept of -human perfection- needs to be central when morally assessing human enhancements.".

Band 10 der Gesammelten Schriften Sulzers enthalt den gesamten Briefwechsel zwischen J. G. Sulzer (1720-1779) und J. J. Bodmer (1698-1783), der hier zum ersten Mal vollstandig nach den Handschriften transkribiert und kommentiert wird. Fur die Edition von Sulzers Schriften ist dieser Briefwechsel geradezu fundamental: Mit seinen 453 Briefen, die in 35 Jahren (1744-1779) entstanden sind, zahlt er zu den umfangreichsten Korrespondenzen Sulzers und liefert zahlreiche neue Informationen zu zentralen Themenfeldern der europaischen Aufklarung, zur Genese von Sulzers und Bodmers Schriften, zu (...) ihrem Netzwerk, insbesondere in Preuaen und in der Schweiz, sowie zu Aspekten ihres Privatlebens. Damit erweist sich dieser Briefwechsel als eine unumgangliche Quelle, will man die Formierung des literarischen und akademischen Feldes in der Aufklarungsepoche untersuchen. (shrink)

In den berühmten "Reden an die deutsche Nation" entwickelt Fichte das Ideal eines auf philosophische Prinzipien gegründeten Staates, dessen höchstes Ziel die allgemeine Erziehung seiner Mitglieder zur Sittlichkeit im gemeinschaftlichen Handeln darstellt. Fichte begründet die Notwendigkeit der Erhebung der Deutschen gegen Napoleon nicht aus der Einheit der nationalen Herkunft, sondern unter Hinweis auf einen fortschrittlicheren Begriff des Staates.

Musik mit Musik -- Der will nicht nur spielen -- Sätze über musikalische Konzeptkunst -- Mit Leitbild?! -- Das Neue am Neuen Konzeptualismus -- Ausdenken -- Der erweiterte Musikbegriff -- Der aufgelöste Musikbegriff -- Ein kurzer Essay über Liebe -- Hypermoderne Kunst -- Mein tägliches Festival -- Gegen Applaus -- Wer schreit, hat Recht. Über Polemik -- Über Provokation -- Zur Musikkritik -- Die Fotokraft -- Musik und Kapitalismus -- Charts Music -- Minusbolero -- Das Shutter-Prinzip -- Neue Musik über (...) Neue Musik -- Gespräch mit Sergej Newsky -- Gespräch mit Hannes Seidl -- Ich frage mich -- Nachbemerkungen zum erweiterten und aufgelösten Musikbegriff -- Kleines Brevier -- John Cage -- Zu Bernd Alois Zimmermann -- Ganz nah an der Zukunft -- Immaterial 1 -- Immaterial 2. (shrink)

Terrorism challenges our Western world system with a new form of war. Terror contrasts strongly with the Western world's concept of freedom. Thus, an aggravation of this conflict is inevitable. In terms of technical equipment, we are prepared. Mentally, we are not. We know the mental treasures of mankind. We know examples of similar situations, which have happened before. We never wanted to meet them again. Thus, our awakening is even more terrifying. Referring to quite contrasting systems, eras, philosophers and (...) historical events, the volume shows what has to be taken into consideration. (shrink)

Lectures from the late period of Fichte’s career, never before available in English. Translated here for the first time into English, this text furnishes a new window into the final phase of Fichte’s career. Delivered in the summer of 1812 at the newly founded University of Berlin, Fichte’s lectures on ethics explore some of the key concepts and issues in his evolving system of radical idealism. Addressing moral theory, the theory of education, the philosophy of history, and the philosophy of (...) religion, Fichte engages both directly and indirectly with some of his most important contemporaries and philosophical rivals, including Kant, Schelling, and Hegel. Benjamin D. Crowe’s translation includes extensive annotations and a German-English glossary. His introduction situates the text systematically, historically, and institutionally within an era of cultural ferment and intellectual experimentation, and includes a bibliography of recent scholarship on Fichte’s moral theory and on the final period of his career. (shrink)

What kind of education is needed for democracy? How can education respond to the challenges that current democracies face? This unprecedented Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the most important ideas, issues, and thinkers within democratic education. Its thirty chapters are written by leading experts in the field in an accessible format. Its breadth of purpose and depth of analysis will appeal to both researchers and practitioners in education and politics. The Handbook addresses not only the historical roots and philosophical (...) foundations of democratic education, but also engages with contemporary political issues and key challenges to the project of democratic education. (shrink)

This paper examines a looming reproducibility crisis in the core of the hard sciences. Namely, it concentrates on molecular modeling and simulation (MMS), a family of methods that predict properties of substances through computing interactions on a molecular level and that is widely popular in physics, chemistry, materials science, and engineering. The paper argues that in order to make quantitative predictions, sophisticated models are needed which have to be evaluated with complex simulation procedures that amalgamate theoretical, technological, and social factors (...) – leading to problems with reproducibility. Thus, for methodological reasons, the predictive success causes a reproducibility problem. (shrink)

1. Erstes bis drittes Wäldchen. Viertes Wäldchen. Paralipomena -- 2. Kommentar. Register.

Bd. 1: Grundlegung der Ästhetik. Bd. 2: Die ästhetischen Grundgestalten. Bd. 3: Kunstphilosophie und Metaphysik der Ästhetik Bd. 1 , XII- 560, Bd. 2 , XX-602 und Bd. 3 : XX-600.

Zunächst Pfarrer in Berlin-Charlottenburg, dann Professor für Philosophie in Halle, repräsentiert Eberhard die nachwolffianische deutsche Popularphilosophie, der an praktisch und pädagogisch wirksamer Aufklärung im Zusammenspiel mit den fortschrittlichen politischen und religiösen Kräften lag. In diesen Lehrbüchern repräsentiert Eberhard sich als Aufklärer auf dem philosophischen Niveau der ästhetischen, hermeneutischen und historischen Modifikation des Wolffschen Systems und der neuerlichen Rezeption der Philosophie Leibniz’, zumal der Erkenntnistheorie der 1765 erschienenen „Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain“. Eberhard wurde aufgrund seiner Theorie des Denkens und Empfindens (...) als Schüler Leibniz’ bezeichnet; und er verfasste denn auch eine Leibniz-Biographie. Er hielt zeitlebens an den wolffianischen Standards von Rationalität fest und widersetzte sich nicht nur dem normativen Rekurs auf „Empfindsamkeit“ in Literatur und Religion, sondern auch der sog. Glaubensphilosophie Friedrich Heinrich Jacobis, erst recht der zeitgenössischen Wiederkehr von Okkultismus und Esoterik. Johann August Eberhard, professor of philosophy in Halle, is one of the foremost exponents of the Popularphilosophie of the German Enlightenment. He was a major contributor to Friedrich Nicolai’s "Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek", and advanced unorthodox opinions on religious and political issues. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps, and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely (...) copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Episodic memory has been analyzed in a number of different ways in both philosophy and psychology, and most controversy has centered on its self-referential,autonoeticcharacter. Here, we offer a comprehensive characterization of episodic memory in representational terms and propose a novel functional account on this basis. We argue that episodic memory should be understood as a distinctive epistemic attitude taken toward an event simulation. In this view, episodic memory has a metarepresentational format and should not be equated with beliefs about the (...) past. Instead, empirical findings suggest that the contents of human episodic memory are often constructed in the service of the explicit justification of such beliefs. Existing accounts of episodic memory function that have focused on explaining its constructive character through its role in future-oriented mental time travel do justice neither to its capacity to ground veridical beliefs about the past nor to its representational format. We provide an account of the metarepresentational structure of episodic memory in terms of its role in communicative interaction. The generative nature of recollection allows us to represent and communicate the reasons why we hold certain beliefs about the past. In this process, autonoesis corresponds to the capacity to determine when and how to assert epistemic authority in making claims about the past. A domain where such claims are indispensable are human social engagements. Such engagements commonly require the justification of entitlements and obligations, which is often possible only by explicit reference to specific past events. (shrink)

Johann Nikolaus Tetens s Philosophical inquiries into Human Nature and its Development (1777) is one of the most important philosophical works of the late Enlightenment. In 14 essays, Tetens attempts to resolve the fundamental problems of Enlightenment philosophy. This is the first complete and annotated edition of this major work of late Enlightenment empiricism since its initial publication.".

Everybody is Doing Beauty (which refers to the German word Schönheitshandeln) - women use make-up daily and men shave. The first section of this paper deals with the differentiation of the various forms of Doing Beauty. On the one hand some of these actions are part of the daily routine and carried out in a rather unconscious way. On the other hand there are a number of actions where the result is durable, intended and product of a rational process. However (...) they have one thing in common: Doing Beauty means both portraying yourself and securing one’s identity. In the following the focus is on the motives for it: conformity and individuality the pursuit or refusal of the prevailing beauty ideal. Several gender-specific hypotheses are derived from these theoretical implications, for example: Females are more critical of their own body and therefore, attain a higher degree of Doing Beauty. In contrast, men are more content with themselves, which is also reflected by the extent and manner of their Doing Beauty. These differences are to be found for activities in a daily routine as well as a product of a rational process. The discrepancies between the sexes are evaluated with a student sample (N=621). The quantitative analyses dearly show the different levels of involvement in these actions. In fact females are more critical of their bodies, their amount of time spend on Doing Beauty habitually is larger, their consideration of durable actions is more pronounced as well as they perform these actions more often. (shrink)

The paper draws on a conceptual analysis of justice in discussing the power of rational choice justifications of conceptions of justice. It is argued that the concept of justice can be reduced to two independent moral dimensions. From this conceptual thesis a simple conceptional criterion is derived which any powerful theory of justice must satisfy. An attempt is made to use this fundamental criterion in evaluating a wide variety of rational choice theories of justice. It is shown that there is (...) but one variant of the rational choice approach which in substantiating principles of justice does not violate this criterion. (shrink)

Wann habe ich zu existieren begonnen? Mit der Geburt? Mit der "Empfangnis"? Oder noch davor? Wenige Fragen beruhren unser Selbstverstandnis so sehr wie diese. Diesen Fragen wird transdisziplinar theologisch-philosophisch-naturwissenschaftlich nachgegangen. Gezeigt wird, welcher Status dem Vorgeburtlichen in Geschichte und Gegenwart zugeschrieben wurde bzw. wird; Begriffe wie "biologisches Individuum", "Spezies" und "aktive Potenz" werden geklart; sodann wird diskutiert, welche ontogenetischen Ereignisse als "Beginn" - sei es des Organismus, des Individuums, des Menschen oder der Person - taugen.

Unter den Versuchen Fichtes, sein Denken allgemeinverständlich darzustellen, zählt diese 1800 erschienene Schrift zu den inhaltlich abgerundetsten und aufschlußreichsten; bei den Zeitgenossen stieß sie jedoch auf vehemente Kritik, Hegel sah in ihr gar einen besonders illustrativen Text für den Aufweis der Haltlosigkeit der von Fichte in der Wissenschaftslehre vertretenen Position einer auf das Ich als Tathandlung gegründeten Philosophie. Darum vermag allein schon die Lektüre von Fichtes Bestimmung des Menschen und ihrer kritischen Rezeption in Hegels Glauben und Wissen einen Einblick in (...) die Gründe zu vermitteln, warum bis ins 20. Jahrhundert die Philosophie Fichtes weitgehend als ein merkwürdiger Mosaikstein auf dem Wege "Von Kant bis Hegel" oder, im Hinblick auf den "Endpunkt" dieses Wegs wohl genauer, in der "Entwicklung des Spinozismus" betrachtet wurde. Deutlich wird einer neuen Lektüre aber auch, wieviel noch zu tun bleibt, um die wichtigen Erkenntnisse, die im Deutschen Idealismus auf so getrennten Bahnen gewonnen wurden, im Blick auf die gemeinsamen Grundprobleme einer "Ersten Philosophie" ohne Rückfall in die traditionellen Feindbilder wahrzunehmen und kritisch in die pluralistische Diskussion heutigen Philosophierens einzubringen. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes argued for absolute sovereignty, and claimed that in Christian countries the sovereign was fully empowered to govern the church as well as the state. There are grounds for seeing Hobbes as a staunch opponent of religious toleration, and a number of scholars support some variation of this position. This chapter examines the case for and against the idea of the tolerant Hobbes, beginning with his views on the clergy, and the historical context of those views, especially in the (...) debates on church–state relations that preoccupied his English contemporaries. Hobbes noted that clerics were commonly funded by tithes, which were a tenth of the incomes of the laity to whom they catered. Many English Protestant supporters of toleration drew the line at tolerating Roman Catholicism. Hobbes contended that “there is Publique, and Private Worship”. The precept that states should establish the uniform, public worship of God stemmed, in his opinion, from reason and nature. (shrink)

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) gehört unangefochten zu den Klassikern der europäischen Geistesgeschichte. Seinen Lebensunterhalt verdiente er im Predigeramt, seine erste Anstellung nach dem Studium im ostpreußischen Königsberg fand er in Riga. Hier in Livland beginnt ein homiletisches Schaffen, das ihn über seine Lebensstationen hinweg bis nach Weimar beschäftigen wird. Die vorliegende Edition erschließt erstmals vollständig Herders Predigtnachlaß, zunächst für die erste Epoche seines Wirkens. Sie umfaßt die Zeit bis Mai 1769, ediert sämtliche erhaltenen Predigten aus der Rigaer Periode, weist verlorene (...) Texte nach und berücksichtigt auch die Entwürfe aus Schul- und Studienzeit, die bis etwa 1758 zurückgehen. Einleitende Aufsätze und ein Kritischer Apparat erschließen das Corpus und machen es auch für Nichtfachleute zugänglich. (shrink)

The philosophical foundations of human rights are as complex as they are controversial. For some years, the debate has been dominated by the rather gridlocked opposition between moral and political conceptions of human rights. Moreover, a profound examination of the social and relational dimension of human rights has been lacking. Against this background, this volume brings together contributions which scrutinise the multi-faceted foundations of human rights. It is a valuable collection for philosophers, political scientists and legal scholars interested in fresh (...) insights into the idea and practice of human rights. With contributions by Markus Abraham | Andreas Busen | Johannes Haaf | Christoph Herrler | Justine Lacroix | Franziska Martinsen | Luise Müller | Esther Neuhann | Niklas Plätzer | Ned Richardson-Little | Regina Schidel | Tatjana Noemi Tömmel | Alexander Weiß | Markus Wolf. (shrink)

Johannes Geng geht der Frage nach, inwiefern der Film als technologisches Leitmedium des 20. Jahrhunderts auf die geschichtliche Bedingtheit des Sehens und Hörens zu beziehen ist, indem er in einem ersten Schritt den zugehörigen film- und kulturtheoretischen Diskurs systematisch aufarbeitet. Darüber kommt er zu dem filmtheoretischen Modell eines Sensorischen Regimes, das er dann an zwei Fallstudien – dem NS-Propagandafilm und dem Direct Cinema – exemplifiziert. In unserem Wahrnehmen leiten uns kulturell geformte Gewohnheiten, Erwartungen und Einstellungen. Damit ist Wahrnehmung mehr (...) als nur ein biologischer Mechanismus, sondern historisch variabel. (shrink)